Dave Ongie

KINGSPORT — Gate City’s baseball team put up some crooked numbers on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, one of them was in the error column.

The Blue Devils committed seven errors, which helped Lebanon escape Hunter Wright Stadium with a 16-12 victory at the end of a wild Clinch Mountain District game that lasted 3 hours, 20 minutes.

The Pioneers were far from perfect themselves as they committed five errors. That left Lebanon coach Jarrod Sparks with a raspy voice by the end of the contest, but he also had a wide smile on his face after the last out was recorded.

“That’s a long baseball game. I’m tired,” Sparks said. “It was ugly. There were moments where we did everything right and moments where we did everything wrong.

“We’ll take a win, go back to Lebanon and be happy we got it.”

Gate City committed six errors over the final two innings, helping Lebanon score four runs in the sixth and four more in the seventh to stay one step ahead of the Blue Devils.

Gate City plated five runs in the bottom of the seventh and the tying run came to the plate, but a hard-hit ball found the Lebanon center fielder’s glove to end the game with the bases loaded.

“They’ve done it every game,” Gate City coach Robbie Perry said of his team. “We’re winning in errors and losing in runs because we’re giving the other team too many runs.”

For complete coverage of the game see the April 24 edition of the Times-News.